A place to further develop my critical writing, about film and TV, partly for the hell of it. Thanks for reading!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Top 10 Cinema Experiences

I wanted to make a list of the most memorable and formative
films I’ve seen in theaters – I’ve seen better films than some on this list,
and more influential films as well, but not in the unique environment of a
movie theater. I’ll go in reverse chronological order, by the date on which I
saw them.

10. The Godfather Part
II (April 19, 2012) I had only seen this on video, on a small TV, probably
about 10 years ago. Cinemark Theaters has been showing restored classic films
on Wednesday afternoons and evenings this year; I got to see Citizen Kane on the big screen, and North by Northwest is coming on July 18th.
My mom and I watched the first Godfather
again a few days prior, and then I took her to see this (at the Cinemark 25 in Union City, California), as she had not seen it
in a theater since its original run. It was incredible. It had been so long
since I had seen the film that I had forgotten pretty much everything except
the rooftop sequence. I knew it was revered for a reason, but I had thought it
was mostly for the largeness of it, I had forgotten that there were so many “little”
character moments. When we left the theater, I asked my mom “Why aren’t people
still talking about this film all the time?”

9. Napoleon (March
26, 2012) This screening was a once-in-a-lifetime experience – there were only
four screenings of the new restored print in all of North America, all part of
the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, at the gorgeous Paramount Theater in
Oakland. Many thanks go to my friend Pat in Chicago for bringing it to my
attention. The film was accompanied by a live orchestra, with a new score. I sat
in the front row, and could see over the pit before the film started and during
intermissions. There were a few intermissions, including a dinner break – it was
an all day event. I knew next-to-nothing about the film, so I thought all of it
was amazing. The climactic triptych sequence, with the curtain drawing back to
reveal two more screens, was unprecedented. Nothing I could write could do the
experience justice, easily the most significant time I’ve spent watching a
film.

8. The Tree of Life
(June 3, 2011) I had been looking forward to this film for years, literally. I
have a proper review on this site, but what I didn’t mention is that I went on
crutches while I was still healing from an ankle injury. I took a train to see
it at the Embarcadero Cinemas on the day it opened in San Francisco. This film
met and exceeded my expectations, and I had been hoping for a lot, for a long
time. It didn’t seem to affect the few others in the theater as much, but I had
no problem in quietly weeping at the end. I saw it twice more in theaters, and
it was the first film I watched when I got an HDTV for the first time.

7. Inception (July
16, 2010) This deserves an entry if only because I’ve never experienced the type
of collective bated breath that there was during the last moments of this film,
at the sold-out midnight premiere at the IMAX theater of the Metreon in San
Francisco. This was the first film that I actively avoided any marketing for,
as I knew I wanted to see it and didn’t want to be spoiled. (This paid off, as
an entire act of the movie was completely unknown to me until I saw it in the
largest venue possible.) One of the giddiest feelings I’ve had watching a film,
especially among hundreds of others. When the title card dropped at the end,
there was a brief, completely silent pause, and then some dude in the back said
“YEEAHHHH!” and we all clapped. (For those that don’t understand why people
clap at a movie, it’s from sheer enjoyment.)

6. Magnolia
(January 7, 2000) My favorite film. Before that, my favorite had been The Graduate, which my English teacher
in my junior year of high school had broken down for the class, scene-by-scene,
in a special film segment in order to provide a different approach to critical
thinking. I saw it at the Hub Theater in Fremont (which later became a Middle Eastern theater, and then was torn down – I think a pet store is there now) by myself – this is also the
earliest film I remember seeing by myself, because my friends and family
weren’t interested in it, and I didn’t want to miss it; I’ve since seen the
majority of films since by myself – and by the time I got to my car afterwards,
I knew it was my favorite film. Not only was it different and bold (I admire
ambition in film), but I connected with many of the characters, for better or
worse. There’s more to it than that, but this list is extremely informal, and I
don’t want to analyze this film too much.

5. Pulp Fiction (Late
December, 1994) This was to film what Nirvana had been to music – it reset and
invigorated the landscape for a new generation. I had heard about it while I
was away during my freshman year, but I couldn’t find a theater that was
playing it. When I came back home during winter break, I saw it with a friend
I’d known throughout junior high and high school (at the Cinedome 7 in Newark),
and we didn’t really know how to process what it was we just experienced. At
the time, I was struggling with my environmental engineering major, and here
was something that made me reconsider what it was I might want to do. Of
course, that is now half a lifetime ago, and I’m only writing some amateur
reviews. I did change my major and my life – after foolishly attempting another
semester in engineering – largely because of Pulp Fiction, though. I’m five years older now than Tarantino was
when the film was released, but after squandering my twenties (in a completely
boring and unromantic way), I’m a happier person for embracing films again in
some critical capacity, and this film sparked all of that.

4. Jurassic Park
(June 11, 1993) Released in the last days of my junior year of high school,
this movie was a “first” for many things: my first midnight premiere; my first
film in digital sound (I can still remember the effect of hearing the raptors);
the first time CGI was immersive and awesome. I saw it at the Hub Theater. It was also the first film I wrote a review for. In the English class
I was in (the same class that the teacher taught The Graduate in), students took turns with a “class log” of sorts:
notes on the previous day’s teachings, and anything we wanted to share. (The
creative aspects of these logs ranged from poetry to drawings to video bits.)
So my turn came on the Friday that Jurassic
Park was released, and I knew a lot of my classmates had read the Michael
Crichton book and were looking forward to the movie. I don’t remember the
review itself, but I’m sure I talked about the effects and how faithful it was
to the book.

3. 2001: A Space
Odyssey (Summer, 1990) This was the first old movie I saw in a theater, and
I’m pretty sure it was a 70mm print. I think I was about 14 years old. It was
at the Hub Theater. Seeing 2001 on the big screen, for the first
time, was mind-boggling. I had never seen a film that experimented with
narrative and visuals like that (not that I knew what narrative was at the time).
I mean, if you’ve seen it – YOU’VE SEEN IT, RIGHT – you can probably imagine
what it would do to a 14 year old kid seeing it in 70mm in an at-the-time
state-of-the-art theater. It became a marker by which pretty much all other
films since were judged. This was probably the first film that prompted me to
spend time thinking about what goes into making a film, and how any of the
stuff that was done was possible – not only the special effects, but how it was
produced and marketed.

2. The Big Chill (
~ September 29, 1983) This was the first R-rated movie that I was taken to, and
also the first exposure to mature themes that I “got,” if only instinctively. I
couldn’t properly articulate it then, so I won’t try to now, but at seven years
old, I sensed both the sorrow and joy from the characters. After, as my parents
walked out with me into the lobby of the Cinedome 8 in Fremont, I asked if we
could play some of the music from the movie, and I probably hoped that my
parents would be happy because of it. This was likely the last movie that we
saw together as a family, as my parents had a, shall we say, contentious
separation and divorce soon after. You can’t always get what you want.

1. Star Wars: Episode
V – The Empire Strikes Back (May 22, 1980) This is the first movie that I
remember seeing, and that I was excited to go see. It is still one of my
favorites, despite Lucas’s best efforts. I saw it on my fourth birthday, on a
bright Saturday afternoon at the Century Theater 21 in San Jose. I still have a
memory, both an image and a feeling, from atop my dad’s shoulders, of the sea
of people in the theater parking lot (that didn’t have any cars in it). The
movie had only been released the day before, and anticipation must have been incredible.
I remember that people dressed as some of the characters came out and performed
a little skit in front of the screen, and then… well, then the 20th
Century Fox fanfare and that crawl – which I could almost read all the way
through. Empire was my first taste of
cinematic action and adventure, science fiction, romance, heroism, fate, will,
and darkness.